Routing transmission units (e.g., blocks, cells, frames, packets, etc.) over a transport environment (or communication network) from one end device to another entails selecting routing (or communication) paths established by one or more intermediate routing nodes (e.g., bridges, firewalls, gateways, routers, switches, etc.) of the transport environment. Typically, these intermediate routing nodes forward transmission units based on routing tables which maintain routing information, such as available adjacent routing nodes, destination/next hop associations, desirability of particular routing paths. etc. Routing tables are usually constructed utilizing routing algorithms seeking to optimize one or more routing metrics (or standards of measurement, e.g., available bandwidth, congestion, hop count, latency, reliability, speed, and the like) for determining an optimal (or, at least, a most desirable) routing path to a predetermined destination. Thus, routing may be considered to involve two basic activities, i.e., first determining optimal routing paths and then transporting transmission units over the transport environment based on the determined optimal routing paths. Traditionally, other relevant cost factors have not been considered largely because of lack of integration with other systems external to the routing network, thereby masking true costs of certain communication paths.
Therefore, there is a need for an approach that provides for effective and efficient techniques to determine routing metrics that are reflective of costs other than communications considerations.